The six-day deadlock between the Hisar administration and Khedar residents was resolved on Wednesday evening after the officials agreed to the protesters demands. Residents of Khedar and adjoining villages have been protesting against the new guidelines issued by the ministry of power to stop giving free ash to farmers, which they have been getting for the last several years.
Earlier in the day scores of farmers and locals gathered at a protest site near the thermal power plant where BKU leader Rakesh Tikait, Gurnam Singh Charuni and others were present.
Tikait had warned the administration to resolve the issue by accepting agitators’ demands or brace for an intensified agitation. As scores of people from Haryana started reaching Khedar, police removed the barricades installed at various entry points in the village.
A 56-year-old farmer was killed and four others, including three cops, had sustained injuries when a tractor driver allegedly tried to ram his vehicle into a barricade, but ran over them during the protest outside Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant at Khedar on Friday, forcing the police to use water cannons and tear gas shells to disperse the protesters.
Farmer leader Suresh Koth said the administration has accepted their demand to provide a government job on deputy commissioner’s rate to the next kin of the deceased farmer and appropriate financial assistance, release of four persons arrested for the violence and quashing an FIR registered against 800 protesters.
{{/usCountry}}Farmer leader Suresh Koth said the administration has accepted their demand to provide a government job on deputy commissioner’s rate to the next kin of the deceased farmer and appropriate financial assistance, release of four persons arrested for the violence and quashing an FIR registered against 800 protesters.
{{/usCountry}}“The administration has also agreed to give water and electricity to Khedar residents from the thermal power plant. The gaushala will get ₹37 per tonne from the ash being sold by thermal plant authorities. The farmer’s body was kept at gaushala and his body will be cremated after the release of four persons,” he added.
Hisar deputy commissioner Priyanka Soni said the deadlock ended after both sides held deliberations peacefully. “We have urged the protesters to cremate the deceased’s body and lift the dharna,” she added.